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I don't pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.

Money doesn't have the emotional content of a real motivator. Money is a satisfier, not a motivator. When you don't have it, it's all you can think about. But when you have it, you don't really think about it. Motivation decreases as appetite for money is satisfied.

Maximizing one of life's variables (such as net worth) usually comes at the direct expense of others (such as free time). More money is better only if the tradeoffs it requires don't undermine other dimensions of your desired point of arrival. Even the wealthiest among us agree that at some level, money has diminishing marginal returns. But since money is a common scorecard, it can gradually become an end in and of itself-with the consequence that more always seems better.

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Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It buys you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.

Africans speak of two hungers: the lesser hunger -- for the goods and services that sustain us and the means to pay for them, and the greater hunger, which has to do with understanding what life is all about.

Today, that greater hunger is even keener, for workers and executives the world over. And I worry that the only way people can satisfy it is though the lesser hunger. Money is quite accurately called compensation -- if you can't find a major purpose in life, you compensate for it by making money. What we have today is a bizarre phenomenon: Economies everywhere are growing, but once they've hit a certain level the amount of happiness or contentment in a society doesn't increase. So the lesser hunger still doesn't satisfy the greater hunger.

Many women say, "I have enough money." I rarely hear a man say that. And it's because money is different to men and women. I think, for men, money is often a symbol of their power; it's not for what can they buy. For women, money is not usually how they measure their success. It's not that they don't want it; but they want it for the things that they can get with it. Of course, there are women—and men—who just love their work, so money is not the issue at all. But I know many women who will say, "You know what? All my personal needs and all my family's needs are taken care of, and if I'm no longer enjoying the environment or the work, I'm gone." If there are other demands on women that are really important, particularly family, they are going to leave.

It's a commonplace that there are some things money can't buy. [Georg] Simmel had a more striking insight: Having money can actually be more satisfying than having the things money can buy. That's because…money has a "surplus value." A person with money enjoys the added satisfaction of having a choice of things to buy: "The value of a given amount of money is equal to the value of any object for which it might be exchanged plus the value of free choice between innumerable other objects."